WAKA History
Thanks to Marc Tyll for this
history of WAKA.
In 1971, WUWU-AM
1390 "The Woo Woo" was sold
to Olivia Broadcasting, and the Top 40 programming was dropped to make
room for a Beautiful Music format which was album tracked, non automated.
The format was patterned after WROA-AM 1390 Biloxi, Mississippi. The call
letters were changed to WAKA, and the open faced glass studios remained
in the Gainesville Mall, located in Northwest Gainesville on Northwest 13Th
Street (441). Although the format was beautiful
music, the delivery had more of a progressive sound. Unable to effectively
compete with 100,00 watt WRUF-FM 103.7,
which had the advantage of providing a 24 hour static free stereo beautiful
music signal, Olivia Broadcasting sold WAKA to Dame Media
in 1978, owned by Rick Dame. The studios, which had been located in the
Gainesville Mall since the late 60s, were relocated to a small office building
in South Gainesville near Payne's Prairie Preserve State Park. Former WMFQ-FM
92.7 (92.7, the original frequency before moving to 92.9) Operations
Manager Shawn Smith was hired to become the new WAKA Program
Director. Smith's wife, Marilyn
King, who had served as News Director at Ocala's WWKE-AM
1370, was also hired as News Director. After seven years broadcasting
beautiful music, Smith started gradually adding softer contemporary album cuts
from Carol King, the Doobie Brothers, Chicago
and James Taylor to mention a few which were mixed and
interspersed with the existing beautiful music programming. Eventually, the
format was totally Soft Rock known as "Album Music". The new WAKA
moniker became "14K". Towards the end of 1979, Smith left
"14K" and Jeri Banta from WCKS-FM
101.1 was brought in as program director. Banta had relocated to
Gainesville to attend the University of Florida, and worked
on-air doing afternoon drive on 14K. The programming began to shift from Soft
Rock to Top 40/New Wave under Banta's programming leadership. Top
40 lasted until mid 1980 when Dame Media sold WAKA to Kent
Gainesville Radio, Inc. Programming on most all Gainesville radio stations
were going through changes with heritage Top 40 WGGG-AM
1230 switching to Adult Contemporary; WRUF-AM
850 switching to Toby Arnold's "Unforgettable" adult
standards and big bands; and Progressive rocker WGVL-FM
105.5 switching to CHR. As a result,
14K began to lose market share as a Top 40 station. See WKGR.